Sunday, 14 December 2014

You may or may not have noticed that I have not posted for a while... this is because I have been writing weekly for my new blog, documenting the progress of my MA studies, alongside, studying my MA, doing a full time lecturing job, Facebook page, etc. etc. so I think I can forgive myself. but just to keep this one going I am duplicating the post I wrote yesterday on my other blog as that one is private.

However, if you are studying an MA yourself and wish to follow it please message me (claire@claireabaker.co.uk) your e-mail address and a link to your own MA blog if you have one, we could exchange ideas, information etc?

So this is a recent episode from my MA blog...

But first a note: We were asked today if we thought the imminent lecture would be relevant to our own work. It was 'Memory and the Visual in Post Conflict Northern Ireland', I have to say that I have taken something valuable from every single session or lecture, whether or not I deemed it to be it relevant to me, even if it was just a list of possible words I may use in my written stuff.

And here's such a list:

transformative reconfiguration

valueist

tangibility

psycho memory

skeuomorph

baudelarairian

trans - temporal

indexical

As a little task for myself I might try and insert all the above into my next presentation to my students :-)

Friday, 17 October 2014

I have started a new blog to document my MA journey… how
long that will be is anyone’s guess… but it’s a tool for myself - my future
evaluations of the experience, the units of study and hopefully some progress.
Maybe I’ll be a new person when (if) I finish it!

Anyway, if you have a reason for interest I’ll need to add
you to the ‘approved’ list so send me an email and let me know… if not don’t
worry – it’s not that interesting! and I DO still intend to continue this one...so here's some new Urbex pics...

Saturday, 23 August 2014

So most of yesterday was spent taking photographs; it was other-worldly and amazing... like standing on another planet... (and sinking into another planet)

no colour editing done at all

No apologies for the late post (again); all summer I have been working, decorating (not MY house), cleaning, buying more stuff, playing (a little), all ready for the onslaught of going back to my 'proper' job next week, starting my MA next month and looking forward to a holiday next year.

Sunday, 20 April 2014

At least I now have some kind of idea of the look and feel of this collection of drawings now... i.e. nothing like how I initially imagined. I think I have now progressed to the 'very beginning' stage. I have 2 finished A2 sheets, this one being closest to how the rest may pan out, in three steps...drawn from a collage of photographs taken of motifs found on stones at Le Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris and a Parisian metro station entrance, using layers of original old 'found' wallpaper (in Darlington not Paris).

I'm intending to use these (when finished!) to design some embroidered fashion fabrics from ... am quite fancying using this one as is though - digitally printed on the front of an A line skirt panel? um?

The other paintings I started are no further forward (yet), may have to go urbexing this afternoon for further research and dirtiness.

Saturday, 29 March 2014

I don't really want this to turn into an 'Urbexing' blog but that is mainly what I have been doing, you can see some of the most recent pictures on my Facebook page so I will only post a couple of my 'abstract externals'...

And this one... for the lines;

obviously I shall draw all these...at some point! Meanwhile I have started some artwork inspired by all the dilapidation I have been photographing, and although it is in it's very early stages I am not yet in the flow and I think it shows, it definitely doesn't have a direction. I have made the mistake of being a bit too careful and it's stilted but I intend to loosen it up and reflect the messiness by introducing inks and red wine, forgetting about the flat colour, trying to be neat and also the fact that it is for an exhibition and just play with it for a while.

Thursday, 23 January 2014

Sunday... urban exploring and climbing through window frames into a building with hardly any floors. In the wilds of Hartlepool, whipped by thorny branches and blizzardous rain, this sanctuary of pure broken beauty sheltered me and my Christmas camera...

Thursday, 9 January 2014

This is my New Years Resolution; I started this on my flight to Havana last summer with a secret needle, no scissors (my mini travel tooth floss worked a treat) - then left it mostly alone for the rest of the year. So, anyway, I have to either finish this by February for an exhibition deadline or by the end of 2014 (which is absolutely the most likely)... I have kind of working titled it 'An obsession with distressed architectural surfaces'OR 'An excuse for beading'...

I intend to post images of my progress regularly (to make me do it) on my Facebook page so please have a look occasionally and help me out when I get stuck!